New and Old Movie Reviews

Le Samouraï:

Made in 1967, before Martin Scorsese or even Francis Ford Coppola came into the crime drama film scene, Jean-Pierre Melville made this French film. The film follows Jef Costello (Alain Delon), a hitman who lives alone with his bird, and has a woman wrapped around his finger.

The film opens with a wonderful shot of Delon lying on his bed in his small, minimalist apartment, smoking a cigarette, his bird chirping in the background. After awhile, we see him gather some things, and get ready to leave, putting on his hat.

His hat. Whenever he leaves his apartment, he puts on his hat and swipes the brim. Every time. Weather he is on his way to kill someone, running away, or even when he knowingly has an assassin in his apartment. I'm not sure of the significance of this, but it gives you a sense that Delon's character has a method to what he does.

Delon's character makes such a good and believable hitman, because he knows how to set up incredible alibi's, and he makes sure to be clean whilst on the job.

The first twenty minutes or so of this movie focus on Jef Costello doing a job, and showing how he does that job, but this is not the part of the movie that makes it memorable. Shortly after the job, he is taken into custody. Somehow, he remains out of the grasp of the Police Superintendent (François Périer).

After his run in with the law, he tries to meet with a messenger to pick up his money for the job, where an attempted assassination is played out on Costello's head.

For fear of ruining the plot to any readers, I'll stop with it there.

This movie is worth at least one viewing, and don't let the fact that it is in French stop you. Try to at least rent it, seeing as there is a Criterion Collection DVD out of it, it shouldn't be impossible to find. So give it a go.

In conclusion, this isn't the best crime drama you'll see in your life, but it is at least worth a viewing if you're a fan of the genre.

GOLIATH.

GOLIATH is an Indie Comedy by the Zellner Brothers that will probably pass by under the radar for most people. The reason for this is because it premiered as an IFC film, and only toured with a movie festival, and now that it is out on DVD, it can only be found at Blockbuster. Now, some might say "Tons of people rent randomly at Blockbuster, so eventually, tons of people will watch it." Well, I went to my local Blockbuster for the soul purpose to rent a copy of this, and, even though it is a new release, I had to search for 30 minutes for their one copy that was hidden behind a copy of State of Play. But, I found it, rented it, and went home to watch it.

Now, I have been following this movie for awhile, being a fan of the Zellner Brothers from some of their previous engagements, such as their shorts FIDDLESTIXX, and Nathan Zellner's work on the popular Machinima series Red v. Blue. But I went into this without reading any reviews and know generally very little about the film.

The main plot that is described to you is that it is about a man who loses his cat, who is named, obviously Goliath. Now, although this is a prominent part of the movie, it is not at all the main plot of the film. This film is wholly about a man who goes unnamed, played by David Zellner. His life is falling apart. His wife is leaving him, he is being forced to take on extra duties at work for no extra pay, he is suffering a break down, and oh yeah, his cat goes missing.

I should probably get this out of the way now, but I really didn't like this movie a lot. I found it to be boring and have parts that felt like they were thrown in there for extra time. With that out of the way, I'll continue.

The movie opens with David Zellner's character leaving a funeral of his ex-wife's aunt, angrily. We learn in the car ride away, while he leaves a message for his ex-wife, that she made him leave, and that he is obviously having a hard time coping with the separation. This was the last interesting part of the movie to me, unfortunately.

After this, he searches for odd porn, and notices his cat is missing. He ensues on a very short look for him, which, seeing as that is the only thing that was promoted for the film, I would've thought would be longer.

In the next half an hour we have the two worst parts of the film. Any time his character is at work, you're supposed to have the feeling that that he dislikes it there. And I got that, but they tried to make me understand that, for much longer than they needed to. I could tell it nearly right away, yet the work scenes went on and on. But they weren't as bad as the divorce scene. Nearly right after the elongated work scene, we have a nearly seven minute scene where the main character is signing paper work for his divorce. And nothing happens.

After these scenes, the movie does focus on the plot of Goliath, and David's fall into a sort of madness, which is played out through finding and avenging his cat, mostly on a convicted sex offender, played by Nathan Zellner. These parts, the last half n hour or so, are pretty good.

In conclusion, if you can sit through the unnecessarily long work and paperwork scenes in this movie, you'll find a good story about a man's life falling apart and how he deals with it. But unless you are a fan of the Zellner's previous works, and want to see this, there is no need to go out of your way to find the needle in the haystack that is Blockbuster's movie walls.

(500) Days of Summer.

This movie is, as the narrator tells us in the beginning, a story of "Boy meets Girl." It is, in a sense, a love story, but it is also a story of hate, despair, and hope.

The movie starts with Tom Hansen (Joseph Gorden-Levitt) being rather upset over a "break-up" with Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel). This scene is essentially in the middle of the plot, but the narrative style makes it fit.

The plot is showed to the audience out of order, through a shot with a number day on it. The days going from 1 to 500. These days represent Gordon-Levitt's relationship period with Deschanel's. I.E. The title of the movie. Although the idea may sound jumbled and hard to follow, such as Christopher Nolan's Memento, it really isn't. Marc Webb (Director) does a superb job making the film smooth and easy to follow.

There are many different stages this movie takes, and most of them follow Levitt's character's mood and life. The first act is mainly more upbeat, with him learning and knowing of Deschanel, and slowing falling in love with her. This part of the movie, I thought, was not as great as the rest of the film. Levitt's character, being shy and mild mannered, talks about Summer with his friends, played by Geoffrey Arend and Matthew Gray Gubler. And through his friends drunken ramblings, one person finds out that another person likes them, and a relationship ensues. Their happy go lucky relationship goes on with no real interesting prospects, but every once in awhile being interrupted by later days, after Summer has left Levitt's.

These scenes, where Levitt's is a horrid wreck from the end of the relationship, are the best in the film. While he is falling apart, you see his job failing, and his appearance and care for anything dwindling. Levitt's shows off his talent that I've only seen paralleled by him in Rian Johnson's Brick.

The movie from then on tweeters back and fourth from their happy relationship to post-relationship, with some comical directions in between. This movie knows it is a movie, and I'm glad it does. It makes it fun to watch, and be a part of the experience of watching it.

If you can find this movie in a theater near you, see it. It is labeled as a romantic comedy, but it is more than that. It is worth the price of the movie ticket. I personally plan to pick this movie up when it arrives on DVD for plenty more enjoyable views.